Posted on 03/04/2007 7:15:02 AM PST by Valin
My local liquor store is selling Girl Scout cookies, and last week I chose Thin Mints over gin, thinking myself quite virtuous. Little did I know… According to MeMe Roth, who is the head (and may be the sole member) of National Action Against Obesity:
Girl Scouts have an economic, medical and moral imperative to dump junk food as their $700 million fundraising source….Girl Scout Cookies are high-calorie, high-sugar, high in saturated fat and nearly devoid of nutrition. Using young girls as a front to push millions of cookies onto an already bloated population further exacerbates an alarming [obesity] crisis, no matter how cute the uniforms are.
Could it be true that little girls are selling sin door-to-door in exchange for merit badges?
This strange little Girl-Scouts-cause-obesity trope has been making the rounds for a while now: The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof penned a column during last year's selling season in which he worried about the growing menace of "little girls intent on clogging your arteries and killing you with their sweetness." At least Kristof maintained a semi-satirical tone. He knew that he was proposing something on the silly side: "Actually, it's a pity that Girl Scout cookies are being sold by cherubs," he wrote. "If the sellers were Iranians with turbans and menacing frowns, then the authorities might be more alert to the dangers."
Even before Kristof, a television ad produced by the pro-business Center for Consumer Freedom put a Girl Scout on the stand to demonstrate the absurdity of obesity-related lawsuits. "You make them taste good on purpose, don't you?" a sinister trial lawyer asks a beribboned, beanie-wearing defendant.
But now Roth has done it for real—and with little discernable humor. "I’ve always cringed at young females identifying themselves with baked goods," she says. "And I’m not convinced more cookies makes the world a better place."
But of course, more cookies do make the world a better place—as anyone who has ever had a crunchy, coconut-y, chocolate-dipped Samoa can attest. People buy Girl Scout cookies because they are good cookies for a good cause. Most people buy (and eat) them in moderation, so a boycott isn't changing health outcomes for the vast majority of cookie customers. And as Roth rightly points out, the Girl Scouts rely on the cookies for $700 million in revenue every year, revenue that they are unlikely to be able to replace with other sources—even in the five-year transition time graciously allotted to them by Roth.
More choices don't make people fat, bad choices make people fat. In the case of Girl Scout cookies, more choices could even make you thinner. The Girl Scouts experiment with new flavors every year, and have removed trans fats from this year's batch. The new flavors tend to be low fat or boast some other health conscious modification. A boycott (girlcott?) against all Girl Scout cookies by the most health-conscious segment of consumers is unlikely to encourage more experimentation.
This isn't Roth's first anti-fat publicity stunt. She also hosts the Wedding Gown Challenge, which encourages women to do annual checks to make sure that they still fit into their wedding gowns: "Most women I know commit fraud on their wedding days—they weigh-in for the walk down the aisle with no expectation of maintaining that weight year after year." (When I visited, Google Ads for eating disorder treatments graced the right column of her main page—but, for the record, she also discourages "extreme" pre-wedding dieting.)
Roth's message of personal responsibility, and her use of a boycott rather than a lawsuit or a legislative ban are to be applauded. But she is still on the wrong track. Scapegoating particular foods or companies (remember the lawsuit blaming McDonalds for obesity?) isn't a sensible approach. There isn't a single man, woman, or child in America who thinks that Thin Mints are slimming, name notwithstanding. Adorable salesgirls in knee socks are not tricking buyers or leading them down the garden path, most people just buy a box or two of nostalgic cookies once a year for kicks. They know what they're getting.
And what could be more American than Girl Scout cookies? The scouts have been selling cookies since 1917. Roth says that they "sell up to 200 million boxes yearly—that's about one box for every overweight American." But one box of cookies a year each, for a total of 1,350 calories, isn't too bad—certainly not enough to add an extra roll to anyone's midsection or roll anyone into an early grave.
Actually, there is one thing that's more American than Thin Mints and Trefoils: apple pie. Grandmothers across the nation, beware. Unless you fit into your wedding dress—MeMe Roth could be coming for your pie pans next.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is associate editor at Reason magazine.
I taught morals to my kids, the Girl Scouts did not.
Well, that's because you don't live in Waco. From this article:
The book, which was graced with the Girl Scout logo, included images of couples having sex and a boy properly wearing a condom.
It should be noted that the book in question was It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris. The title refers to Harris' contention that there's really no such thing as abnormal sexual activity. It was, in the Waco case, distributed to girls in 7th through 9th grades at a GS sponsored event.
Sound like "good clean fun for youngsters?" Sound like "politics?" That's funny, if a guy comes up to my daughter on the street and shows her a picture of a latex-clad penis, I won't be thinking about politics while I put him on the sidewalk and press my boot into his neck as I dial 911 on my cell. Instead, I'll be thinking how lucky he is that I am a peaceful man and not inclined to kill him before he gets some kind of psychological treatment.
If the folks from national had even come out and said something like, "We don't have the authority to get involved in this issue by firing people in this council's leadership or anything like that, but we want to make it clear that this is despicable and these issues are to be dealt with by parents, not Girl Scout troops" I would have been quite satisfied and left my daughter in the program. But they basically said, "Not our problem if somebody wants to come by one of our events and show your daughter a picture of a wang. Sex + Girl Scouts is an A-OK combo in our world." Need some proof? Take a look at who they got for keynote speakers at the national convention in 2005, a year after the Waco controversy.
So forgive me if I think it's quite silly to view that as a political issue. If that's true, then Michael Jackson has twice been in danger of becoming a political prisoner of the State of California.
These food Nazis are scarier than all the other Nazis combined.
My only complaint about Girl Scout cookies is that they sell them during Lent, when I have given up cake and cookies. I buy them, intending to leave them in the cupboard to be consumed after Easter.
But then, every time I look in the cupboard:
TEMPTATION!
This button, worn by a hulking and now-muscular man in his 40's, gets attention. I'm asked "Why", and I start the pitch.
I'm sellin' em, baby.
Give them to an atheist friend to hold for you, LOL!
No way! The atheist would eat them all himself and not feel a shred of guilt.
Yep. You're never selling the 'steak' you're selling the 'sizzle!' :)
Oh. Yeah. I guess that would be a pretty big flaw in my theory, LOL!
I agree. I know that in some areas the price of a box of cookies is different than in others areas, as well. The figure I quoted last night (70 cents)is how much my Troop is getting per box basedo n how many boxes they sold, others get more and others get less based upon the average boxes per girl per troop.......at least that is how it is done in the Chesapeake Bay Council.
You're a hoot!!!!!!!!!!
When the news starts reporting Girl Scouts flying hijacked planes into buildings and beheading hostages, I'll believe the headline.
Jeez, what kind of a neighborhood does this guy live in?
The two boxes of Samoas didn't last two days in my office! Can I sue?
Where I used to live in Montana, the liquor store sold bait, ammo, groceries and rented videos, too.
LOL!!!!
A friend of mine ordered 1 box of each kind to bring into his office........2 days later he called me to order 8 more boxes!!!!
'little freckled fiend' ... [glances right and left] Yeah, we've got those around these parts too. Diabolical ain't it!
Anything that resembles food gets scarfed up real quick around here. Anything that is sweet and tasty creates a feeding frenzy!
I haven't been 185 since I weighed my dog.
I understand.
At times I think the adults are worse than the kids when it comes to sweets.
Agghh; I'm stuck trying to picture a boy improperly wearing a condom-inium.
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